Bounce

The Bounce House

I heard reworked canon.

"The Magic of..."

Name
Teth-Adam of Canaan

Alias
Shazam

Age
Approx. 3,500 years (Actual) | 12 years (Teth-Adam) | Mid/Late 20s (Shazam)

Personality
Courageous, Judgmental, Overconfident, Selfless, Ashamed

Powers

• Homo magi: As a descendant of Jebediah of Canaan, Teth was born with the ability to use magic. Even when not empowered, his connection to the Rock of Eternity marks him as the current Wizard and one of Earth's foremost magic users.
• Magical Empowerment (SHAZAM): When invoking the ancient magic, Teth is transformed into a demigod-like figure. Beyond the physical changes to his appearance, the effect imparts abilities associated with the heroes and gods of his native Ancient Egypt:
  • The Stamina of Shu (invulnerability)
  • The Speed of Horus (heightened reflexes, flight)
  • The Strength of Amun (super strength)
  • The Wisdom of Zehuti (genius intellect)
  • The Power of Aten (magic, immortality)
  • The Courage of Mehen

Weaknesses

• Electricity: As the use of the word SHAZAM is associated with lightning, if Teth receives a strong enough jolt of electricity while in his empowered state, he will revert to his normal form.
• Earth's Champion: Teth's powers are inextricably linked to the Rock of Eternity, the focal point of Earth's magical leylines. He was chosen to be the Earth's protector, and a consequence is weakened the further from the Earth that he travels. Beyond Earth's moon, he is sufficiently weakened as to be unable to use magic or transform into Shazam. This means that he is fully mortal and can experience both aging and death.
• Will and the Word: Spellweaving requires two elements; mental concentration and vocal utterance. Anything which interrupts or prevents one or both of those aspects will prevent Teth from being able to use his magic, including to transform himself into his empowered state.

Background Hero
Swamp Thing

Appearance

As Teth-Adam, he presents as a young "tweenage" boy of Semitic heritage whose bronzed complexion marks him as ambiguously Greek, Arab, or Hebrew. Small, by modern standards, his back still bears the scars from his time under the lash of slave taskmasters. He has wavy, black hair and green eyes (a trait once associated with Northern Egyptian people).

As Shazam, he presents as a herculean figure in physical prime, approximately mid-to-late twenties. His color, hair, and eyes are the same, with the figure seemingly the avatar of Teth's future self. A towering 6-foot-5-inches and 240 lbs, the black-and-gold clad figure is imposing even without his demigod-like abilities.

Potential Storylines

• The Orb of Ra: When archaeologists in Egypt unearth a relic of the ancient world, they unleash the very evil that Shazam was created to stop... Ahk-Ton.
• The Un-Men (Swamp Thing tie-in): Modern military research has succeeded in achieving a classified experiment from Nazi Germany's past. With the elemental balance thrown into chaos, Anton Arcane and the Black return to threaten the world with the Rot.
• Of Gods and Men: Seeking a return to the mortal world, the Demon Sabbac manipulates a once small time crook into selling his soul for power, becoming Shazam's equal in a race to stop Hell on Earth.
• Powerless: Teth finds himself on an alien world and has to overcome a challenge as a boy without his magic or powers.
• Boulevard of Broken Dreams: Someone from the League learns of Shazam living homeless on the street.

BRIEF Bio
Teth-Adam was taken into slavery at a young age, the victim of Egyptian raids on the nomadic Canaanite tribes of the region known as the Fertile Crescent, sometime during Egypt's Eighteenth Dynasty. While still a child, he stood up to the task masters, earning himself a death sentence. Meanwhile, the balance of power in the Ancient World was disrupted by the appearance of a demonic artifact which the Egyptians had dubbed the Scepter of Ra, which corrupted the soul of a priest named Ahk-Ton and created what may have been the Earth's first supervillain. One of Earth's earliest heroes, the Wizard Shazam, found that he could not both fight the forces of Hell and stop the threat of their avatar in the mortal plane. Seeking a champion who could stop Ahk-Ton while he dealt with the unseen evil manipulating events from the shadows, the Wizard chose Teth for his demonstrated bravery and courage... though the fact that Teth is the last survivor of the Wizard's tribe may have also factored into that decision.

Rescued from death and given the power of the Rock of Eternity, Teth-Adam not only defeated Ahk-Ton but inspired a slave revolt that led to the creation of one of the wonders of the Ancient World, the founding of Khandaq -- the slave's kingdom. If Ahk-Ton was one of the first supervillains, then Shazam was one of the first superheroes, his exploits and adventures spreading across the globe to inspire many stories that followed, from Heracles to Gilgamesh to Beowulf. And, for a time, Teth was everything that the Wizard expected him to be, but being showered with praise and celebrated as a hero soon turned to worship and Teth spiraled into hubris in buying into the belief that he was a god above men. Chosen to be Earth's champion, his thirst for more power and glory led to his becoming the nemesis of the Ancient World. This led to a confrontation with the Wizard that led to Teth unleashing a spell that sundered his amassed kingdom, destroying its most ancient cities and forming divisions that still exist in the founding and borders of modern day Bialya and Khandaq.

Seeing his kingdom destroyed by his own hand, the gravity of what he had become sank in, and Teth accepted exile in the Rock of Eternity, where his removal from the mortal world would prevent his giving in his thirst for power. He became the Wizard's apprentice and, eventually, his successor. Thousands of years later, he is still working on himself. As such, he had no plans for leaving the Rock of Eternity, afraid of inviting temptation to return, but recent events and the removal of many of Earth's modern defenders have left its ancient champion no alternative but to say the word once more.

Notes

• Theme: Imagine Dragons [Bones]
• In his "alter ego" as 12-year-old Teth Adam, he lives on the street in Fawcett City, using an abandoned section of subway as a hideout and sleeping in an old railcar.

Sample Post

Hider

Thunder rolled in the distance.

Above the cityscape below, the clouds were illuminated by the flashes of light that momentarily lit up the sky at dusk. There was a bright bolt of lightning, the clap of thunder echoed across the atmosphere above. In the momentary flash, a solitary figure appeared in the sky.

Static crawled up and along the black and gold ensemble that covered the hovering enigma. As he turned his gaze below, the timeless magi found his mind already working out the points of orientation.

The message had been routed by watchtower. A break-in reported at the S.T.A.R. Labs in Jump City.

Descending down through the dark clouds, the raven-haired figure found himself floating over a structure that looked like it had been hit by a bomb.

Or worse.

Someone had wanted to get into S.T.A.R. Labs rather badly, it seemed...

The sound of sirens -- police, fire, and ambulance -- could be heard in the distance. The building seemed to tremble, as though the foundation had been disturbed. Moving quickly, the ancient warrior began moving through the building looking for anyone who might still be in there.

What he found, two layers deep, was ground zero.

A strange, reddish-purple ooze seemed to coat the ceiling, walls, and floor around where some kind of containment unit had been blown apart.

And some rather large, messy footprint made clear that something -- or someone -- had walked away from this. Bringing one hand up to the communicator recessed into his ear, Teth said, "I'm at S.T.A.R. Labs, but this wasn't a break in... it was a break out."

As the man followed the mucky trail, a decidedly squick squish drew a look of disgust that was instanteous. Looking down, his boot was now gummed up in whatever slime or sludge had re-decorated the interior of the place.

"Wonderful..." the child-hero murmured, floating up off the group as he moved through the air on the trail.

DC Universe: Genesis - Justice For All

Obligatory Rebecca Black Reference

DC Universe: Genesis - Justice For All

K A I - R O

_{T A L E S F R O M T H E G R E E N L A N T E R N C O R P S}

---

---

_{ACT I:AD ASTRA PER ASPERA
Part 2: “Oa”}

He awoke with a start.

His breath seemed to catch in his throat. He bolted upright, head on a swivel, as the environment around him was alien. All around him were smooth, reflective surfaces. The light seemingly diffused as if through crystal.

This was not the Buddhist Monastery.

Shifting his legs, the boy slid down from the slab on which he had awoken. As he got his feet under him, he looked back and saw that the bed upon which he had been lying was an altar or table. Simple in form, but it glowed -- as though it were made of light itself.

As if to confirm the ethereal nature of that construction, the table of light seemed to flicker and dissolve. Sticking a hand out, the boy’s hand pawed at where, just a moment ago, a solid object had been there.

...and was then struck at the fact that his hand was in some kind of white glove. Looking over himself, the boy marveled at the fact that his body was clothed in something different from anything he had ever worn before. The gloves and boots were white, with the arms and legs black and the torso green. A circle on the chest seemed to contain a sigil or rune of some kind.

Glancing up, the boy caught his reflection in the crystalline walls of the spartan room. The logo on the chest seemed to stare back at him.

Had he... seen that symbol before?

“Do you remember how you got here?”

A voice.

...but, it wasn’t a voice?

Turning to his left, then circling around to his right, the child did a complete circle. His eyes scanned the room and found only his reflection staring back at him no matter which way he turned. The only other object was a...

...a plant?

Craning his head to one side, the child took a step closer to look at it. It was a pumpkin? On a vine? Did pumpkins grow on vines?

Being from the mountain of Tibet, he’d only seen them in photographs.

But, something in the back of his mind seemed to recognize that he was not alone. “Kham sang?” the child uttered, the Tibetan leaving his lips even before he could have stopped it. Then, he remembered, there had been police.

Was this a Chinese interrogation room? Switching to Mandarin, the boy then offered, “Ni hão?”

“I believe the polite phrase is ‘tashi dalek.’’”

It was as though Kai-Ro was wearing headphones. The voice seemed to speak directly into his head. Almost instinctively, the boy’s hands came up to either side of his head, as though to confirm that he wasn’t wearing ear buds.

At the same time, it confirmed the feeling that he was not alone.

“Yes,” the voice said, though Kai-Ro heard it in perfect Tibetan. “I am in this room with you.”

The boy’s head started to turn, before he instead stared down at the pumpkin-vine. His mind was wrestling with a question, which seemed to come to a singular conclusion.

“Good,” the voice uttered inside his mind. As it spoke, the pumpkin and its vines shifted, as the plant raised itself up in the air.

It drifted forward, toward him.

Kai-Ro took a step back, away from it.

“You accept the reality that there are things which exist, even if you do not know of them,” the voice in his head remarked, as the vines seemed to undulate and curl in mid-air. “Now, do you remember how you got here?”

“There was a light,” the boy recalled aloud. Pausing there, his eyes darted from side to side, as though he were questioning his memory even as he recalled, “...and a... ring?” Had that been where he’d seen this symbol before? “And... and I was flying?”

“Flying where?”

The boy pursed his lips. He opened his mouth to speak, then seemed to doubt himself. “There was all this black... and stars..?”

“It seems impossible doesn’t it?” the pumpkin-vine-being spoke inside the boy’s head. “And yet, you know that you are no longer on your planet.”

The boy’s head craned up sharply as the suggestion cut straight to the well of doubt that he had been wrestling subconsciously with. “This is another...” he began, stopping himself before he could say something...

...well, frankly, something stupid.

The fact that he was talking to a plant seemed to throw that notion out the window though. “...another world?” he uttered finally, the intonation making clear that it was as much a question as it had been a realization.

“This is Oa,” the voice stated, before adding, “Which is different than the planet that I am from. Like you, I was chosen by a ring and brought here.”

“Chosen,” the boy echoed, as the word seemed to resonate. Taken aback for a moment, the boy seemed to hesitate for several seconds of awkward silence before he finally asked, “Chosen for what?”

“That, my young monk, is the right question.”

DC Universe: Genesis - Justice For All

DC Universe: Genesis - Justice For All

K A I - R O

_{T A L E S F R O M T H E G R E E N L A N T E R N C O R P S}

---

---

_{ACT I: AD ASTRA PER ASPERA
Part 1: “Kai-Ro”}

T I B E T
_{EARTH | SECTOR 2814}

The call to prayer came before the dawn.

It would be several hours before the sun rose, in fact. Dawn in the Tibetan mountains would come around 7 a.m. in this time of year. Which would be about four hours from now.

The boy woke atop a thin mat, laid out on the floor. The room was no more than a closet, with three children of similar age crowded into the shuttered space. As they stirred to wake, each picked up the red-orange cloth that had served as their sole bedding. Shifting and tucking it around their bodies revealed the reality that the sheet was, in fact, their clothing.

Bare feet padded from out of the cloistered confines, spilling out into a temple hall in which monks of varying ages had begun to mill about. The three boys made their way to the showers, to begin the day by first preparing their bodies. In times past, there would have been more of them. Child-monks, given to the monasteries by a cultural tradition in which one son of each Tibetan family was trained as a monk, but today they were less than a handful.

Banned. Prohibited, by the laws that had superimposed themselves on Tibet. As the boys made their way along the halls, the banners of China hung alongside images of Communist Party Leaders.

“Tayata om...”

The young monk paused. He was laboring at a churn, a traditional method of making the yak butter tea known in Tibet as po cha. As children, monk initiates were required to have a sponsor, who guided their education and their place in the monastic order. In his case, that sponsor was Monk Lhakpa, who was also in charge of the monastery’s kitchens.

“Tayata om bekanze...” the boy began, re-starting the attempt at recitation. Monk Lhakpa had been teaching him a new mantra, to help guide the meditative exercise for this morning. After they had finished preparing breakfast for the monks, in any case. Looking up from his butter churn, the boy seemed to pose a question as he uttered, “...bekanze razha?”

A solitary finger was raised, over at where the aging monk was preparing a large pot of porridge. “Bekanze maha, bekanze razha,” the elder monk stated, before adding the conclusion, “Samudgate soha.”

“Tayata om bekanze maha bekanze razha samudgate soha,” the boy recited, completing the mantra. When he had finished, he looked up at his teacher, as though for affirmation.

“Good,” Monk Lhakpa stated, eliciting an immediate smile from the child. Then, the solitary finger again returned to the air as the monk asked, “Now, what does it mean?”

The smile fell. A look of confusion played out across the youth’s face, as it was plain to see that the child was wrestling with any manner of thoughts or emotions, before finally looking up and stating, “But... you didn’t tell me what it means.”

“It’s not a recital, Kai-Ro,” the man quipped back, invoking the religious name that had been given to the boy when he had taken his first vows. As the man started to prepare the food to be served, he shifted his attention to the boy. Crossing over to the butter churn, the man began to decant the butter tea into a large kettle for service. As he did, he continued, “I didn’t ask what it means to me, I want to know what it means to you.”

The child’s head went back, his face betraying both irritation and surprise with such honesty that the monk couldn’t stop the laugh from reaching his lips.

“I don’t want you to answer now, but think on it,” Monk Lhakpa said, not bothering to suppress his own amusement at the boy’s theological quandary. Instead, pressing the heavy kettle into the boy’s spindly arms, the monk then touched the child’s head and commanded, “Go. Serve the tea. When you have finished, pray. Meditate on this mantra, then come back to me and give me your answer.”

For his part, Kai-Ro was conflicted. On the one hand, he had the distinct impression that he was being laughed at. On the other, he rather appreciated the head pat from the fatherly monk. That duality of conflict was plain as day on his face, as he lifted the kettle and said, “Yes, sir.”

With the large kettle in his arms, the boy shuffled barefoot from out of the kitchen. In the main hall of the temple, the monks had begun their prayers. Some meditating, a few reciting mantras aloud, while others prostrated themselves before the various iconography in the temple. Meditations upon mandalas, prayer wheels, or the different forms of the Buddha.

As he passed by, those who had their cups out were filled. Mostly, those were in groups that had begun their day with debate and discourse over the sacred and the profane. Mostly, the latter were talks of the Dalai Lama in exile and of the Chinese government’s reach into the monastic lives of Tibet’s cultural religion.

The reason why there were so few child-monks now was the fact that the practice was forbidden, as was education in Tibetan language. Kai-Ro had been smuggled into the temple and made criminal alongside the language that he spoke, and the teachings of his people that only existed in these walls and in the halls of those who had escaped from Tibet to live as exiles.

It was a topic that the boy would not claim to have any knowledge of. China had come to Tibet long before he had been born. And his earliest memories were of the monastery, making this criminal existence the only one that he had ever known.

“I’ve heard that the local party has finally appointed a loyalty director for the monastery.”

They were five monks around the table. All just of age to have taken their second set of vows. Twenty, or so, from what Kai-Ro knew. They spoke in conspiratorial whispers, even as the boy poured the tea for them.

“A permanent presence? Here?” another monk asked. In truth, China had begun planting permanent Communist Party overseers in the monasteries over the last several years. Theirs was one of the increasingly few that had remained under relatively lax monitoring. “How would we keep the...”

A third raised a hand, stopping the man short before he could finish his statement. Looking up, Kai-Ro was suddenly uncomfortable at the realization that everyone at the table was looking at him.

“...the Dalai Lama’s picture a secret?” the monk uttered finally.

It was a lie. They weren’t talking about his Holiness at all.

The first monk who had spoken reached over, lifting the tea kettle from out of the child’s hands and inspecting it. Handing it back, the monk said “Fetch more tea for us, Kai-Ro.”

Cradling the kettle in his arms, the boy stepped back even as he gave a respectful bow toward the table. Uncertainty gripped him as he started to wind his way back toward the kitchens. If the Chinese had a permanent Party representative in the temple, then where would he and the other child-monks go? How could they continue to live here.

As he crossed from out of the main temple structure and into the courtyard, he heard a sharp cry. The first rays of dawn had just started to appear in the sky, the fading twilight still dark enough that it was dim. Still, there was light enough to see the indistinct shapes of two men. And a third, smaller, that seemed to be struggling against them.

Bhuti cleaned the courtyard each morning, before dawn, so that he wasn’t seen.

A gasp froze in Kai-Ro’s throat. Grabbing the hem of his robe, the monk took off in a run toward the kitchens. Shadows in the window told him something was wrong before he made it there. A glimpse in the light of a blue-gray cloth.

The color of the police uniforms.

Dropping the kettle to the ground, the boy turned and sprinted back to the temple. Bursting through the door, the breathless child was met with confusion and aghast looks at the sudden interruption during the prayers. “P-police!” the child managed, between gulps of air.

In a moment, everyone snapped into motion. The picture of the Panchen Lama was put away, swapped instead for the image of the Chinese proxy installed as the Panchem Lama after the abduction of the child-monk that the Dalai Lama had ordained. A small image of the Dalai Lama was pressed into Kai-Ro’s hands, along with one of the Tibetan language texts that they used for study, as the child-monk was ushered along as the monks began preparing for the raid.

“You should be safe in your room,” one of the monks said, grabbing Kai-Ro by the shoulders and pressing him toward that wing of the monastery. “Go there now!”

Struggling to hold the hem of his robe, the texts, and the image of his Holiness, the boy stumbled as he tried to run through the temple. As he neared the steps that would take him up to the closet-like room, menacing shadows told him that the police had already entered on that side. Instead, the boy took a sharp turn, and found himself bolting out of the temple in an effort to avoid them.

Instead, he found himself on the temple steps.

And, below, on the landing was a row of police officers armored in riot gear.

His chest was tight, pain lancing through his lungs as he seemed to forget to breathe. Instead, he stood there. A boy in a saffron robe, holding an image of the Dalai Lama. A rebel and a seditious traitor in both being and appearance. As the police started up the steps, the boy found himself rooted in place.

He was done running away.

And he was done being afraid.

He was Tibetan. He was Buddhist. And the Dalai Lama was his guru. The language of Tibet was his language. If he was to be punished for this, then so be it.

It would not change who he was.

Holding onto the picture of the Dalai Lama, the texts written in the forbidden script of his culture shifting around in his arms, the young child-monk raised his head up high to regard the riot-armored police who advanced upon the child.

He could not change his fate, any more than he could change the Chinese control of Tibet. But he could choose to face it with eyes wide open.

That was when the light grabbed him.

It was an experience like none that the boy could have described. A sudden burst of green light. Penetrating him. Surrounding him. Before he was even aware of what was happening, the boy saw the advancing pair of police officers become small.

That was when he realized that he had, in fact, been catapulted into the air. He tried to keep his grip on the sacred texts and the image of his Holiness, but some slipped from his arms as he tried to maintain any sense of bearing.

It was then that the small jade object floated into view. A jade ring, emblazoned on the crest with the likeness of a lantern.

“KAI-RO OF EARTH, YOU HAVE THE ABILITY TO OVERCOME GREAT FEAR.”

DC Universe: Genesis - Justice For All

@Morden Man summed up my thoughts.

Friday.

DC Universe: Genesis - Justice For All

C H A R A C T E R C O N C E P T P R O P O S A L

K A I - R O

^{_{G R E E N L A N T E R N C A N D I D A T E 2 8 1 4 ♦ M O G O ♦ G R E E N L A N T E R N C O R P S}}

C H A R A C T E R C O N C E P T:

---

The rings of Oa are the most powerful weapons known to man. Across 3,600 mapped sectors of this galaxy, the rings of Oa enable the heroic agents of the Guardians of the Universe -- the Green Lantern Corps! As peacekeepers, these Green Lanterns come under attack by all manner of force, natural and man-made. Through hard won victory or bitter defeat, the Corps is continually planning to induct new members into its ranks to fill the void left by those who have gone before them. To that end, the rings are sent out to the cosmos to find those rare individuals possessing extraordinary will.

Unfortunately, now and again, a ring comes back on the hand of a kid who is maybe ten or twelve years old.

This is the story of how a boy from Earth came to wield the powers of Green Lantern. Drawing inspiration from Ender’s Game, the New Mutants, and Jonny Quest, this concept combines 50s pulp sci-fi adventures with slice of life elements in order to tell the story of the kids who might be the next generation of Green Lanterns.

C H A R A C T E R M O T I V A T I O N S & G O A L S:

---

I’ve written Kai-ro a few times before, but always cast him in the role of Hal Jordan. This eschews that approach for a different take that better uses my talent for world-building by using a concept capable of both sandboxing and collaboration across storylines/locations in our shared universe. The goal is to start with the story of how Kai-Ro became a Green Lantern candidate, transition into Alien-of-the-Episode type adventures, before unveiling a larger storyline at the conclusion of the initial story run.

C H A R A C T E R N O T E S:

---

The following are characters, concepts, or organizations in use with this story:

• Al-x: An alien from Sector 0424, who has a Greys-like appearance. He is 104 years old, but young for his species. Strategic and analytical, but hesitant to act without all the information.

• Arisia Rrab: A young Graxosian, with golden hued skin and hair, as well as pointed ears. Hot-blooded and precocious, she often acts without thinking.

• B’dg: A diminutive H’lven, with a squirrel-like appearance. What he lacks in size or strength, he makes up for with a large personality.

• Alisand’r: A Green Lantern from the planet Tamaran, the chosen instructor for the current class of Green Lantern cadets.

• Ganthet of Oa: One of the Guardians of the Galaxy, who has adopted the role of overseer to the Green Lanterns training program and mentor to the young cadets.

• The Planet Mogo: The headquarters of the Green Lanterns cadet training program, and also secretly one of the Green Lanterns most secret weapons -- a sentient planet who is, itself, a Green Lantern.

• The Spider Guild: An insectoid race of spiders that have spread across the galaxy, preying on the worlds that they conquer.

• The Reach (background mention only): An interstellar empire that assimilates other planets into its collective through careful political manuevering and subterfuge, subjugating the populace only after its collaborators and sleeper agents have established control over the populace. Rebellions are usually bloody and short.

• The Manhunters: The precursor to the modern day Green Lantern Corps, robotic peacekeepers created by the Guardians of the Galaxy and empowered to preserve order in the galaxy. Unfortunately, the Manhunters determined that organic life was a threat to order and massacred the planet Ryut before the Guardians could put a stop to them.

• Tybalt Bak’sar: An intergalactic bounty hunter who wields anti-Green Lantern weaponry.

S A M P L E P O S T:

---

Click Me

T I B E T
_{EARTH | SECTOR 2814}

The call to prayer came before the dawn.

It would be several hours before the sun rose, in fact. Dawn in the Tibetan mountains would come around 7 a.m. in this time of year. Which would be about four hours from now.

The boy woke atop a thin mat, laid out on the floor. The room was no more than a closet, with three children of similar age crowded into the shuttered space. As they stirred to wake, each picked up the red-orange cloth that had served as their sole bedding. Shifting and tucking it around their bodies revealed the reality that the sheet was, in fact, their clothing.

Bare feet padded from out of the cloistered confines, spilling out into a temple hall in which monks of varying ages had begun to mill about. The three boys made their way to the showers, to begin the day by first preparing their bodies. In times past, there would have been more of them. Child-monks, given to the monasteries by a cultural tradition in which one son of each Tibetan family was trained as a monk, but today they were less than a handful.

Banned. Prohibited, by the laws that had superimposed themselves on Tibet. As the boys made their way along the halls, the banners of China hung alongside images of Communist Party Leaders.

“Tayata om...”

The young monk paused. He was laboring at a churn, a traditional method of making the yak butter tea known in Tibet as po cha. As children, monk initiates were required to have a sponsor, who guided their education and their place in the monastic order. In his case, that sponsor was Monk Lhakpa, who was also in charge of the monastery’s kitchens.

“Tayata om bekanze...” the boy began, re-starting the attempt at recitation. Monk Lhakpa had been teaching him a new mantra, to help guide the meditative exercise for this morning. After they had finished preparing breakfast for the monks, in any case. Looking up from his butter churn, the boy seemed to pose a question as he uttered, “...bekanze razha?”

A solitary finger was raised, over at where the aging monk was preparing a large pot of porridge. “Bekanze maha, bekanze razha,” the elder monk stated, before adding the conclusion, “Samudgate soha.”

“Tayata om bekanze maha bekanze razha samudgate soha,” the boy recited, completing the mantra. When he had finished, he looked up at his teacher, as though for affirmation.

“Good,” Monk Lhakpa stated, eliciting an immediate smile from the child. Then, the solitary finger again returned to the air as the monk asked, “Now, what does it mean?”

The smile fell. A look of confusion played out across the youth’s face, as it was plain to see that the child was wrestling with any manner of thoughts or emotions, before finally looking up and stating, “But... you didn’t tell me what it means.”

“It’s not a recital, Kai-Ro,” the man quipped back, invoking the religious name that had been given to the boy when he had taken his first vows. As the man started to prepare the food to be served, he shifted his attention to the boy. Crossing over to the butter churn, the man began to decant the butter tea into a large kettle for service. As he did, he continued, “I didn’t ask what it means to me, I want to know what it means to you.”

The child’s head went back, his face betraying both irritation and surprise with such honesty that the monk couldn’t stop the laugh from reaching his lips.

“I don’t want you to answer now, but think on it,” Monk Lhakpa said, not bothering to suppress his own amusement at the boy’s theological quandary. Instead, pressing the heavy kettle into the boy’s spindly arms, the monk then touched the child’s head and commanded, “Go. Serve the tea. When you have finished, pray. Meditate on this mantra, then come back to me and give me your answer.”

For his part, Kai-Ro was conflicted. On the one hand, he had the distinct impression that he was being laughed at. On the other, he rather appreciated the head pat from the fatherly monk. That duality of conflict was plain as day on his face, as he lifted the kettle and said, “Yes, sir.”

With the large kettle in his arms, the boy shuffled barefoot from out of the kitchen. In the main hall of the temple, the monks had begun their prayers. Some meditating, a few reciting mantras aloud, while others prostrated themselves before the various iconography in the temple. Meditations upon mandalas, prayer wheels, or the different forms of the Buddha.

As he passed by, those who had their cups out were filled. Mostly, those were in groups that had begun their day with debate and discourse over the sacred and the profane. Mostly, the latter were talks of the Dalai Lama in exile and of the Chinese government’s reach into the monastic lives of Tibet’s cultural religion.

The reason why there were so few child-monks now was the fact that the practice was forbidden, as was education in Tibetan language. Kai-Ro had been smuggled into the temple and made criminal alongside the language that he spoke, and the teachings of his people that only existed in these walls and in the halls of those who had escaped from Tibet to live as exiles.

It was a topic that the boy would not claim to have any knowledge of. China had come to Tibet long before he had been born. And his earliest memories were of the monastery, making this criminal existence the only one that he had ever known.

“I’ve heard that the local party has finally appointed a loyalty director for the monastery.”

They were five monks around the table. All just of age to have taken their second set of vows. Twenty, or so, from what Kai-Ro knew. They spoke in conspiratorial whispers, even as the boy poured the tea for them.

“A permanent presence? Here?” another monk asked. In truth, China had begun planting permanent Communist Party overseers in the monasteries over the last several years. Theirs was one of the increasingly few that had remained under relatively lax monitoring. “How would we keep the...”

A third raised a hand, stopping the man short before he could finish his statement. Looking up, Kai-Ro was suddenly uncomfortable at the realization that everyone at the table was looking at him.

“...the Dalai Lama’s picture a secret?” the monk uttered finally.

It was a lie. They weren’t talking about his Holiness at all.

The first monk who had spoken reached over, lifting the tea kettle from out of the child’s hands and inspecting it. Handing it back, the monk said “Fetch more tea for us, Kai-Ro.”

Cradling the kettle in his arms, the boy stepped back even as he gave a respectful bow toward the table. Uncertainty gripped him as he started to wind his way back toward the kitchens. If the Chinese had a permanent Party representative in the temple, then where would he and the other child-monks go? How could they continue to live here.

As he crossed from out of the main temple structure and into the courtyard, he heard a sharp cry. The first rays of dawn had just started to appear in the sky, the fading twilight still dark enough that it was dim. Still, there was light enough to see the indistinct shapes of two men. And a third, smaller, that seemed to be struggling against them.

Bhuti cleaned the courtyard each morning, before dawn, so that he wasn’t seen.

A gasp froze in Kai-Ro’s throat. Grabbing the hem of his robe, the monk took off in a run toward the kitchens. Shadows in the window told him something was wrong before he made it there. A glimpse in the light of a blue-gray cloth.

The color of the police uniforms.

Dropping the kettle to the ground, the boy turned and sprinted back to the temple. Bursting through the door, the breathless child was met with confusion and aghast looks at the sudden interruption during the prayers. “P-police!” the child managed, between gulps of air.

In a moment, everyone snapped into motion. The picture of the Panchen Lama was put away, swapped instead for the image of the Chinese proxy installed as the Panchem Lama after the abduction of the child-monk that the Dalai Lama had ordained. A small image of the Dalai Lama was pressed into Kai-Ro’s hands, along with one of the Tibetan language texts that they used for study, as the child-monk was ushered along as the monks began preparing for the raid.

“You should be safe in your room,” one of the monks said, grabbing Kai-Ro by the shoulders and pressing him toward that wing of the monastery. “Go there now!”

Struggling to hold the hem of his robe, the texts, and the image of his Holiness, the boy stumbled as he tried to run through the temple. As he neared the steps that would take him up to the closet-like room, menacing shadows told him that the police had already entered on that side. Instead, the boy took a sharp turn, and found himself bolting out of the temple in an effort to avoid them.

Instead, he found himself on the temple steps.

And, below, on the landing was a row of police officers armored in riot gear.

His chest was tight, pain lancing through his lungs as he seemed to forget to breathe. Instead, he stood there. A boy in a saffron robe, holding an image of the Dalai Lama. A rebel and a seditious traitor in both being and appearance. As the police started up the steps, the boy found himself rooted in place.

He was done running away.

And he was done being afraid.

He was Tibetan. He was Buddhist. And the Dalai Lama was his guru. The language of Tibet was his language. If he was to be punished for this, then so be it.

It would not change who he was.

Holding onto the picture of the Dalai Lama, the texts written in the forbidden script of his culture shifting around in his arms, the young child-monk raised his head up high to regard the riot-armored police who advanced upon the child.

He could not change his fate, any more than he could change the Chinese control of Tibet. But he could choose to face it with eyes wide open.

That was when the light grabbed him.

It was an experience like none that the boy could have described. A sudden burst of green light. Penetrating him. Surrounding him. Before he was even aware of what was happening, the boy saw the advancing pair of police officers become small.

That was when he realized that he had, in fact, been catapulted into the air. He tried to keep his grip on the sacred texts and the image of his Holiness, but some slipped from his arms as he tried to maintain any sense of bearing.

It was then that the small jade object floated into view. A jade ring, emblazoned on the crest with the likeness of a lantern.

“KAI-RO OF EARTH, YOU HAVE THE ABILITY TO OVERCOME GREAT FEAR.”

P O S T C A T A L O G:

---

Click Me

_{ACT 1: AD ASTRA PER ASPERA}

_{• 1.01 Kai-Ro
• 1.02 Oa
• 1.03 Al-x
• 1.04 Arisia
• 1.05 B'dg
• 1.06 The Haunting of Deck 12
• 1.07 Mogo
• 1.08 At Play In The Fields Of The Lanterns
• 1.09 Dekann
• 1.10 When The Bough Breaks}

_{ACT 2: UNACCOMPANIED MINORS}

_{• 1.11 Far Beyond The Stars
• 1.12 In Darkness Blooms The Spider Lily, pt 1
• 1.13 In Darkness Blooms The Spider Lily, pt 2
• 1.14 In Darkness Blooms The Spider Lily, pt 3
• 1.15 Time's Orphan
• 1.16 Rocks And Shoals
• 1.17 Tears of the Prophets, pt 1
• 1.18 Tears of the Prophets, pt 2
• 1.19 Tears of the Prophets, pt 3
• 1.20 TBD}

_{ACT 3: AND ALL MY DREAMS, TORN ASUNDER (PART I)}

_{• 1.21 TBD}

DC Universe: Genesis - Justice For All

With apologies to @mattmanganon, this application competes with his concept.

However, this sheet is designed to compliment @Hillan's concept and so I'd ask the GM doing the judgment to view them together. Hillan's being the Earth-centric/Starheart focused side of the Green Lantern lore, while my sheet is the space-centric/Corps focused side of the shared story universe.

Kai-Ro

C H A R A C T E R C O N C E P T P R O P O S A L

K A I - R O

^{_{G R E E N L A N T E R N C A N D I D A T E 2 8 1 4 ♦ M O G O ♦ G R E E N L A N T E R N C O R P S}}

C H A R A C T E R C O N C E P T:

---

The rings of Oa are the most powerful weapons known to man. Across 3,600 mapped sectors of this galaxy, the rings of Oa enable the heroic agents of the Guardians of the Universe -- the Green Lantern Corps! As peacekeepers, these Green Lanterns come under attack by all manner of force, natural and man-made. Through hard won victory or bitter defeat, the Corps is continually planning to induct new members into its ranks to fill the void left by those who have gone before them. To that end, the rings are sent out to the cosmos to find those rare individuals possessing extraordinary will.

Unfortunately, now and again, a ring comes back on the hand of a kid who is maybe ten or twelve years old.

This is the story of how a boy from Earth came to wield the powers of Green Lantern. Drawing inspiration from Ender’s Game, the New Mutants, and Jonny Quest, this concept combines 50s pulp sci-fi adventures with slice of life elements in order to tell the story of the kids who might be the next generation of Green Lanterns.

C H A R A C T E R M O T I V A T I O N S & G O A L S:

---

I’ve written Kai-ro a few times before, but always cast him in the role of Hal Jordan. This eschews that approach for a different take that better uses my talent for world-building by using a concept capable of both sandboxing and collaboration across storylines/locations in our shared universe. The goal is to start with the story of how Kai-Ro became a Green Lantern candidate, transition into Alien-of-the-Episode type adventures, before unveiling a larger storyline at the conclusion of the initial story run.

C H A R A C T E R N O T E S:

---

The following are characters, concepts, or organizations in use with this story:

• Al-x: An alien from Sector 0424, who has a Greys-like appearance. He is 104 years old, but young for his species. Strategic and analytical, but hesitant to act without all the information.

• Arisia Rrab: A young Graxosian, with golden hued skin and hair, as well as pointed ears. Hot-blooded and precocious, she often acts without thinking.

• B’dg: A diminutive H’lven, with a squirrel-like appearance. What he lacks in size or strength, he makes up for with a large personality.

• Alisand’r: A Green Lantern from the planet Tamaran, the chosen instructor for the current class of Green Lantern cadets.

• Ganthet of Oa: One of the Guardians of the Galaxy, who has adopted the role of overseer to the Green Lanterns training program and mentor to the young cadets.

• The Planet Mogo: The headquarters of the Green Lanterns cadet training program, and also secretly one of the Green Lanterns most secret weapons -- a sentient planet who is, itself, a Green Lantern.

• The Spider Guild: An insectoid race of spiders that have spread across the galaxy, preying on the worlds that they conquer.

• The Reach: An interstellar empire that assimilates other planets into its collective through careful political manuevering and subterfuge, subjugating the populace only after its collaborators and sleeper agents have established control over the populace. Rebellions are usually bloody and short.

• The Manhunters: The precursor to the modern day Green Lantern Corps, robotic peacekeepers created by the Guardians of the Galaxy and empowered to preserve order in the galaxy. Unfortunately, the Manhunters determined that organic life was a threat to order and massacred the planet Ryut before the Guardians could put a stop to them.

• Tybalt Bak’sar: An intergalactic bounty hunter who wields anti-Green Lantern weaponry.

S A M P L E P O S T:

---

Hider

T I B E T
_{EARTH | SECTOR 2814}

The call to prayer came before the dawn.

It would be several hours before the sun rose, in fact. Dawn in the Tibetan mountains would come around 7 a.m. in this time of year. Which would be about four hours from now.

The boy woke atop a thin mat, laid out on the floor. The room was no more than a closet, with three children of similar age crowded into the shuttered space. As they stirred to wake, each picked up the red-orange cloth that had served as their sole bedding. Shifting and tucking it around their bodies revealed the reality that the sheet was, in fact, their clothing.

Bare feet padded from out of the cloistered confines, spilling out into a temple hall in which monks of varying ages had begun to mill about. The three boys made their way to the showers, to begin the day by first preparing their bodies. In times past, there would have been more of them. Child-monks, given to the monasteries by a cultural tradition in which one son of each Tibetan family was trained as a monk, but today they were less than a handful.

Banned. Prohibited, by the laws that had superimposed themselves on Tibet. As the boys made their way along the halls, the banners of China hung alongside images of Communist Party Leaders.

“Tayata om...”

The young monk paused. He was laboring at a churn, a traditional method of making the yak butter tea known in Tibet as po cha. As children, monk initiates were required to have a sponsor, who guided their education and their place in the monastic order. In his case, that sponsor was Monk Lhakpa, who was also in charge of the monastery’s kitchens.

“Tayata om bekanze...” the boy began, re-starting the attempt at recitation. Monk Lhakpa had been teaching him a new mantra, to help guide the meditative exercise for this morning. After they had finished preparing breakfast for the monks, in any case. Looking up from his butter churn, the boy seemed to pose a question as he uttered, “...bekanze razha?”

A solitary finger was raised, over at where the aging monk was preparing a large pot of porridge. “Bekanze maha, bekanze razha,” the elder monk stated, before adding the conclusion, “Samudgate soha.”

“Tayata om bekanze maha bekanze razha samudgate soha,” the boy recited, completing the mantra. When he had finished, he looked up at his teacher, as though for affirmation.

“Good,” Monk Lhakpa stated, eliciting an immediate smile from the child. Then, the solitary finger again returned to the air as the monk asked, “Now, what does it mean?”

The smile fell. A look of confusion played out across the youth’s face, as it was plain to see that the child was wrestling with any manner of thoughts or emotions, before finally looking up and stating, “But... you didn’t tell me what it means.”

“It’s not a recital, Kai-Ro,” the man quipped back, invoking the religious name that had been given to the boy when he had taken his first vows. As the man started to prepare the food to be served, he shifted his attention to the boy. Crossing over to the butter churn, the man began to decant the butter tea into a large kettle for service. As he did, he continued, “I didn’t ask what it means to me, I want to know what it means to you.”

The child’s head went back, his face betraying both irritation and surprise with such honesty that the monk couldn’t stop the laugh from reaching his lips.

“I don’t want you to answer now, but think on it,” Monk Lhakpa said, not bothering to suppress his own amusement at the boy’s theological quandary. Instead, pressing the heavy kettle into the boy’s spindly arms, the monk then touched the child’s head and commanded, “Go. Serve the tea. When you have finished, pray. Meditate on this mantra, then come back to me and give me your answer.”

For his part, Kai-Ro was conflicted. On the one hand, he had the distinct impression that he was being laughed at. On the other, he rather appreciated the head pat from the fatherly monk. That duality of conflict was plain as day on his face, as he lifted the kettle and said, “Yes, sir.”

With the large kettle in his arms, the boy shuffled barefoot from out of the kitchen. In the main hall of the temple, the monks had begun their prayers. Some meditating, a few reciting mantras aloud, while others prostrated themselves before the various iconography in the temple. Meditations upon mandalas, prayer wheels, or the different forms of the Buddha.

As he passed by, those who had their cups out were filled. Mostly, those were in groups that had begun their day with debate and discourse over the sacred and the profane. Mostly, the latter were talks of the Dalai Lama in exile and of the Chinese government’s reach into the monastic lives of Tibet’s cultural religion.

The reason why there were so few child-monks now was the fact that the practice was forbidden, as was education in Tibetan language. Kai-Ro had been smuggled into the temple and made criminal alongside the language that he spoke, and the teachings of his people that only existed in these walls and in the halls of those who had escaped from Tibet to live as exiles.

It was a topic that the boy would not claim to have any knowledge of. China had come to Tibet long before he had been born. And his earliest memories were of the monastery, making this criminal existence the only one that he had ever known.

“I’ve heard that the local party has finally appointed a loyalty director for the monastery.”

They were five monks around the table. All just of age to have taken their second set of vows. Twenty, or so, from what Kai-Ro knew. They spoke in conspiratorial whispers, even as the boy poured the tea for them.

“A permanent presence? Here?” another monk asked. In truth, China had begun planting permanent Communist Party overseers in the monasteries over the last several years. Theirs was one of the increasingly few that had remained under relatively lax monitoring. “How would we keep the...”

A third raised a hand, stopping the man short before he could finish his statement. Looking up, Kai-Ro was suddenly uncomfortable at the realization that everyone at the table was looking at him.

“...the Dalai Lama’s picture a secret?” the monk uttered finally.

It was a lie. They weren’t talking about his Holiness at all.

The first monk who had spoken reached over, lifting the tea kettle from out of the child’s hands and inspecting it. Handing it back, the monk said “Fetch more tea for us, Kai-Ro.”

Cradling the kettle in his arms, the boy stepped back even as he gave a respectful bow toward the table. Uncertainty gripped him as he started to wind his way back toward the kitchens. If the Chinese had a permanent Party representative in the temple, then where would he and the other child-monks go? How could they continue to live here.

As he crossed from out of the main temple structure and into the courtyard, he heard a sharp cry. The first rays of dawn had just started to appear in the sky, the fading twilight still dark enough that it was dim. Still, there was light enough to see the indistinct shapes of two men. And a third, smaller, that seemed to be struggling against them.

Bhuti cleaned the courtyard each morning, before dawn, so that he wasn’t seen.

A gasp froze in Kai-Ro’s throat. Grabbing the hem of his robe, the monk took off in a run toward the kitchens. Shadows in the window told him something was wrong before he made it there. A glimpse in the light of a blue-gray cloth.

The color of the police uniforms.

Dropping the kettle to the ground, the boy turned and sprinted back to the temple. Bursting through the door, the breathless child was met with confusion and aghast looks at the sudden interruption during the prayers. “P-police!” the child managed, between gulps of air.

In a moment, everyone snapped into motion. The picture of the Panchen Lama was put away, swapped instead for the image of the Chinese proxy installed as the Panchem Lama after the abduction of the child-monk that the Dalai Lama had ordained. A small image of the Dalai Lama was pressed into Kai-Ro’s hands, along with one of the Tibetan language texts that they used for study, as the child-monk was ushered along as the monks began preparing for the raid.

“You should be safe in your room,” one of the monks said, grabbing Kai-Ro by the shoulders and pressing him toward that wing of the monastery. “Go there now!”

Struggling to hold the hem of his robe, the texts, and the image of his Holiness, the boy stumbled as he tried to run through the temple. As he neared the steps that would take him up to the closet-like room, menacing shadows told him that the police had already entered on that side. Instead, the boy took a sharp turn, and found himself bolting out of the temple in an effort to avoid them.

Instead, he found himself on the temple steps.

And, below, on the landing was a row of police officers armored in riot gear.

His chest was tight, pain lancing through his lungs as he seemed to forget to breathe. Instead, he stood there. A boy in a saffron robe, holding an image of the Dalai Lama. A rebel and a seditious traitor in both being and appearance. As the police started up the steps, the boy found himself rooted in place.

He was done running away.

And he was done being afraid.

He was Tibetan. He was Buddhist. And the Dalai Lama was his guru. The language of Tibet was his language. If he was to be punished for this, then so be it.

It would not change who he was.

Holding onto the picture of the Dalai Lama, the texts written in the forbidden script of his culture shifting around in his arms, the young child-monk raised his head up high to regard the riot-armored police who advanced upon the child.

He could not change his fate, any more than he could change the Chinese control of Tibet. But he could choose to face it with eyes wide open.

That was when the light grabbed him.

It was an experience like none that the boy could have described. A sudden burst of green light. Penetrating him. Surrounding him. Before he was even aware of what was happening, the boy saw the advancing pair of police officers become small.

That was when he realized that he had, in fact, been catapulted into the air. He tried to keep his grip on the sacred texts and the image of his Holiness, but some slipped from his arms as he tried to maintain any sense of bearing.

It was then that the small jade object floated into view. A jade ring, emblazoned on the crest with the likeness of a lantern.

“KAI-RO OF EARTH, YOU HAVE THE ABILITY TO OVERCOME GREAT FEAR.”

P O S T C A T A L O G:

---

_{ACT 1: AD ASTRA PER ASPERA}

• Post link goes here

_{ACT 2: UNACCOMPANIED MINORS}

• Post link goes here

_{ACT 3: AND ALL MY DREAMS, TORN ASUNDER (Part 1)}

• Post link goes here

The Bounce House

C H A R A C T E R C O N C E P T P R O P O S A L

K A I - R O

^{_{G R E E N L A N T E R N C A N D I D A T E 2 8 1 4 ♦ T R A I N E E ♦ M O G O ♦ G R E E N L A N T E R N C O R P S}}

C H A R A C T E R C O N C E P T:

---

The rings of Oa are the most powerful weapons known to man. Across 3,600 mapped sectors of this galaxy, the rings of Oa enable the heroic agents of the Guardians of the Universe -- the Green Lantern Corps! As peacekeepers, these Green Lanterns come under attack by all manner of force, natural and man-made. Through hard won victory or bitter defeat, the Corps is continually planning to induct new members into its ranks to fill the void left by those who have gone before them. To that end, the rings are sent out to the cosmos to find those rare individuals possessing extraordinary will.

Unfortunately, now and again, a ring comes back on the hand of a kid who is maybe ten or twelve years old.

This is the story of how a boy from Earth came to wield the powers of Green Lantern. Drawing inspiration from Ender’s Game, the New Mutants, and Jonny Quest, this concept combines 50s pulp sci-fi adventures with slice of life elements in order to tell the story of the kids who might be the next generation of Green Lanterns.

C H A R A C T E R M O T I V A T I O N S & G O A L S:

---

I’ve written Kai-ro a few times before, but always cast him in the role of Hal Jordan. This eschews that approach for a different take that better uses my talent for world-building by using a concept capable of both sandboxing and collaboration across storylines/locations in our shared universe. The goal is to start with the story of how Kai-Ro became a Green Lantern candidate, transition into Alien-of-the-Episode type adventures, before unveiling a larger storyline at the conclusion of the initial story run.

C H A R A C T E R N O T E S:

---

The following are characters, concepts, or organizations in use with this story:

• Al-x: An alien from Sector 0424, who has a Greys-like appearance. He is 104 years old, but young for his species. Strategic and analytical, but hesitant to act without all the information.

• Arisia Rrab: A young Graxosian, with golden hued skin and hair, as well as pointed ears. Hot-blooded and precocious, she often acts without thinking.

• B’dg: A diminutive H’lven, with a squirrel-like appearance. What he lacks in size or strength, he makes up for with a large personality.

• Alisand’r: A Green Lantern from the planet Tamaran, the chosen instructor for the current class of Green Lantern cadets.

• Ganthet of Oa: One of the Guardians of the Galaxy, who has adopted the role of overseer to the Green Lanterns training program and mentor to the young cadets.

• The Planet Mogo: The headquarters of the Green Lanterns cadet training program, and also secretly one of the Green Lanterns most secret weapons -- a sentient planet who is, itself, a Green Lantern.

• The Spider Guild: An insectoid race of spiders that prey upon the planets that they conquer.

• The Reach: An interstellar empire that assimilates other planets into its collective through careful political manuevering and subterfuge, subjugating the populace only after its collaborators and sleeper agents have established control over the populace. Rebellions are usually bloody and short.

• The Manhunters: The precursor to the modern day Green Lantern Corps, robotic peacekeepers created by the Guardians of the Galaxy and empowered to preserve order in the galaxy. Unfortunately, the Manhunters determined that organic life was a threat to order and massacred the planet Ryut before the Guardians could put a stop to them.

• Tybalt Bak’sar: An intergalactic bounty hunter who wields anti-Green Lantern weaponry.

S A M P L E P O S T:

---

Hider

T I B E T
_{SECTOR 2814}

The call to prayer came before the dawn.

It would be several hours before the sun rose, in fact. Dawn in the Tibetan mountains would come around 7 a.m. in this time of year. Which would be about four hours from now.

The boy woke atop a thin mat, laid out on the floor. The room was no more than a closet, with three children of similar age crowded into the shuttered space. As they stirred to wake, each picked up the red-orange cloth that had served as their sole bedding. Shifting and tucking it around their bodies revealed the reality that the sheet was, in fact, their clothing.

Bare feet padded from out of the cloistered confines, spilling out into a temple hall in which monks of varying ages had begun to mill about. The three boys made their way to the showers, to begin the day by first preparing their bodies. In times past, there would have been more of them. Child-monks, given to the monasteries by a cultural tradition in which one son of each Tibetan family was trained as a monk, but today they were less than a handful.

Banned. Prohibited, by the laws that had superimposed themselves on Tibet. As the boys made their way along the halls, the banners of China hung alongside images of Communist Party Leaders.

“Tayata om...”

The young monk paused. He was laboring at a churn, a traditional method of making the yak butter tea known in Tibet as po cha. As children, monk initiates were required to have a sponsor, who guided their education and their place in the monastic order. In his case, that sponsor was Monk Lhakpa, who was also in charge of the monastery’s kitchens.

“Tayata om bekanze...” the boy began, re-starting the attempt at recitation. Monk Lhakpa had been teaching him a new mantra, to help guide the meditative exercise for this morning. After they had finished preparing breakfast for the monks, in any case. Looking up from his butter churn, the boy seemed to pose a question as he uttered, “...bekanze razha?”

A solitary finger was raised, over at where the aging monk was preparing a large pot of porridge. “Bekanze maha, bekanze razha,” the elder monk stated, before adding the conclusion, “Samudgate soha.”

“Tayata om bekanze maha bekanze razha samudgate soha,” the boy recited, completing the mantra. When he had finished, he looked up at his teacher, as though for affirmation.

“Good,” Monk Lhakpa stated, eliciting an immediate smile from the child. Then, the solitary finger again returned to the air as the monk asked, “Now, what does it mean?”

The smile fell. A look of confusion played out across the youth’s face, as it was plain to see that the child was wrestling with any manner of thoughts or emotions, before finally looking up and stating, “But... you didn’t tell me what it means.”

“It’s not a recital, Kai-Ro,” the man quipped back, invoking the religious name that had been given to the boy when he had taken his first vows. As the man started to prepare the food to be served, he shifted his attention to the boy. Crossing over to the butter churn, the man began to decant the butter tea into a large kettle for service. As he did, he continued, “I didn’t ask what it means to me, I want to know what it means to you.”

The child’s head went back, his face betraying both irritation and surprise with such honesty that the monk couldn’t stop the laugh from reaching his lips.

“I don’t want you to answer now, but think on it,” Monk Lhakpa said, not bothering to suppress his own amusement at the boy’s theological quandary. Instead, pressing the heavy kettle into the boy’s spindly arms, the monk then touched the child’s head and commanded, “Go. Serve the tea. When you have finished, pray. Meditate on this mantra, then come back to me and give me your answer.”

For his part, Kai-Ro was conflicted. On the one hand, he had the distinct impression that he was being laughed at. On the other, he rather appreciated the head pat from the fatherly monk. That duality of conflict was plain as day on his face, as he lifted the kettle and said, “Yes, sir.”

With the large kettle in his arms, the boy shuffled barefoot from out of the kitchen. In the main hall of the temple, the monks had begun their prayers. Some meditating, a few reciting mantras aloud, while others prostrated themselves before the various iconography in the temple. Meditations upon mandalas, prayer wheels, or the different forms of the Buddha.

As he passed by, those who had their cups out were filled. Mostly, those were in groups that had begun their day with debate and discourse over the sacred and the profane. Mostly, the latter were talks of the Dalai Lama in exile and of the Chinese government’s reach into the monastic lives of Tibet’s cultural religion.

The reason why there were so few child-monks now was the fact that the practice was forbidden, as was education in Tibetan language. Kai-Ro had been smuggled into the temple and made criminal alongside the language that he spoke, and the teachings of his people that only existed in these walls and in the halls of those who had escaped from Tibet to live as exiles.

It was a topic that the boy would not claim to have any knowledge of. China had come to Tibet long before he had been born. And his earliest memories were of the monastery, making this criminal existence the only one that he had ever known.

“I’ve heard that the local party has finally appointed a loyalty director for the monastery.”

They were five monks around the table. All just of age to have taken their second set of vows. Twenty, or so, from what Kai-Ro knew. They spoke in conspiratorial whispers, even as the boy poured the tea for them.

“A permanent presence? Here?” another monk asked. In truth, China had begun planting permanent Communist Party overseers in the monasteries over the last several years. Theirs was one of the increasingly few that had remained under relatively lax monitoring. “How would we keep the...”

A third raised a hand, stopping the man short before he could finish his statement. Looking up, Kai-Ro was suddenly uncomfortable at the realization that everyone at the table was looking at him.

“...the Dalai Lama’s picture a secret?” the monk uttered finally.

It was a lie. They weren’t talking about his Holiness at all.

The first monk who had spoken reached over, lifting the tea kettle from out of the child’s hands and inspecting it. Handing it back, the monk said “Fetch more tea for us, Kai-Ro.”

Cradling the kettle in his arms, the boy stepped back even as he gave a respectful bow toward the table. Uncertainty gripped him as he started to wind his way back toward the kitchens. If the Chinese had a permanent Party representative in the temple, then where would he and the other child-monks go? How could they continue to live here.

As he crossed from out of the main temple structure and into the courtyard, he heard a sharp cry. The first rays of dawn had just started to appear in the sky, the fading twilight still dark enough that it was dim. Still, there was light enough to see the indistinct shapes of two men. And a third, smaller, that seemed to be struggling against them.

Bhuti cleaned the courtyard each morning, before dawn, so that he wasn’t seen.

A gasp froze in Kai-Ro’s throat. Grabbing the hem of his robe, the monk took off in a run toward the kitchens. Shadows in the window told him something was wrong before he made it there. A glimpse in the light of a blue-gray cloth.

The color of the police uniforms.

Dropping the kettle to the ground, the boy turned and sprinted back to the temple. Bursting through the door, the breathless child was met with confusion and aghast looks at the sudden interruption during the prayers. “P-police!” the child managed, between gulps of air.

In a moment, everyone snapped into motion. The picture of the Panchen Lama was put away, swapped instead for the image of the Chinese proxy installed as the Panchem Lama after the abduction of the child-monk that the Dalai Lama had ordained. A small image of the Dalai Lama was pressed into Kai-Ro’s hands, along with one of the Tibetan language texts that they used for study, as the child-monk was ushered along as the monks began preparing for the raid.

“You should be safe in your room,” one of the monks said, grabbing Kai-Ro by the shoulders and pressing him toward that wing of the monastery. “Go there now!”

Struggling to hold the hem of his robe, the texts, and the image of his Holiness, the boy stumbled as he tried to run through the temple. As he neared the steps that would take him up to the closet-like room, menacing shadows told him that the police had already entered on that side. Instead, the boy took a sharp turn, and found himself bolting out of the temple in an effort to avoid them.

Instead, he found himself on the temple steps.

And, below, on the landing was a row of police officers armored in riot gear.

His chest was tight, pain lancing through his lungs as he seemed to forget to breathe. Instead, he stood there. A boy in a saffron robe, holding an image of the Dalai Lama. A rebel and a seditious traitor in both being and appearance. As the police started up the steps, the boy found himself rooted in place.

He was done running away.

And he was done being afraid.

He was Tibetan. He was Buddhist. And the Dalai Lama was his guru. The language of Tibet was his language. If he was to be punished for this, then so be it.

It would not change who he was.

Holding onto the picture of the Dalai Lama, the texts written in the forbidden script of his culture shifting around in his arms, the young child-monk raised his head up high to regard the riot-armored police who advanced upon the child.

He could not change his fate, any more than he could change the Chinese control of Tibet. But he could choose to face it with eyes wide open.

That was when the light grabbed him.

It was an experience like none that the boy could have described. A sudden burst of green light. Penetrating him. Surrounding him. Before he was even aware of what was happening, the boy saw the advancing pair of police officers become small.

That was when he realized that he had, in fact, been catapulted into the air. He tried to keep his grip on the sacred texts and the image of his Holiness, but some slipped from his arms as he tried to maintain any sense of bearing.

It was then that the small jade object floated into view. A jade ring, emblazoned on the crest with the likeness of a lantern.

“KAI-RO OF EARTH, YOU HAVE THE ABILITY TO OVERCOME GREAT FEAR.”

P O S T C A T A L O G:

---

_{ACT 1: AD ASTRA PER ASPERA}

• Post link goes here

_{ACT 2: UNACCOMPANIED MINORS}

• Post link goes here

_{ACT 3: AND ALL MY DREAMS, TORN ASUNDER (Part 1)}

• Post link goes here

Absolute Comics - Justice Rising

_{“T H E G E O M E T R Y O F S H A D O W S”
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A T L A N T I C C I T Y
_{HALY’S CIRCUS}

It was some time after one in the morning.

The crowds had all gone home. Now, the clean up began. Clowns and freaks changed out of their colorful costumes and set to work, not only in cleaning up the grounds but also in breaking down the tents and booths. The work would take them into the next day, where they’d get a brief rest while waiting for the trucks to arrive. And then it’d be down the road to set it all up again in Gotham.

They were going to do one more show, a big July celebration in Vegas, and then go on hiatus for a few months. A little breathing room for vacations, then the planning for the next series of shows would begin in earnest. Swap out different acts, hold auditions and take on a few new routines before the next tour would be announced.

“Jason!”

Trina Todd had changed out of the colorful leotard. Instead, the acrobat look the part of working mom in a pair of worn jeans and her hand tied back with a bandana. “Jason Todd, get out here this minute!” the woman was going through the broken down carnival, in an otherwise mundane pursuit for a family that was anything but.

She turned a corner and nearly ran into C.C. Haly. “Oh, C.C. Have you seen Jason?”

The aging entertainer just gave a knowing smile. “Watching the tamers put the lions into their cages,” the former magician supplied, putting a thumb in the direction that the woman should travel.

It was when Trina had turned to walk away that the man caught a glimpse of someone walking toward him. Waldo Flynn. Still in his clown make up.

Once upon a time, he’d have been relieved to have seen Waldo. His make-up off, bow tie askew, and usually two glasses of whiskey that they’d share.

But that had been when the Graysons had still been with them. Everything had changed after the Graysons had died.

Especially Waldo.

A cellphone was extended out toward him. “Call for you, Mister Haly,” Waldo stated, the clown make-up appearing to twist the man’s smile into something strangely wicked.

The hair stood up on the back of the man’s neck. Gritting his teeth, the old man refrained from accepting the phone. “I’m busy right now,” the man uttered brusquely.

If the smile was creepy, then the gleam in Waldo’s eye was down right dangerous. “It’s a very important call, Mister Haly.”

The patriarch had started to step away, and hesitated then. He lingered, unsure of whether to take one step forward or one step back, for a moment longer. Then relented and accepted the device.

“I hear every show in Atlantic City was sold out. Congratulations on your success.”

The voice -- graveley, with a thick Jersey accent -- immediately sent shivers through the old man’s body. Gooseflesh crept up the back of his hand as he held the phone to the side of his head.

“Of course, none of us would be where we are if we didn’t have help, now would we? You’ll be in Gotham this week, and I still haven’t received my invitation. Frankly, I’m a little insulted. Haven’t I been good to you? Star City, New York, Atlantic City... no problems with the cops. No social services breathing down your neck about the minors in your crew. No hustlers, you just do your thing. You think that kind of protection is cheap? I’m charging you pennies on the dollar. Now, tell me, I ain’t on your side.”

“It is way past your bedtime!”

At the sound of Trina’s voice, the old man looked off to one side. The woman was dragging Jason, still in his Little Lord Fauntleroy clown suit and make-up, off toward the trailers.

The fact that there were families counting on his business for their livelihoods was not lost on the entertainer. With a sigh, the old man finally spoke into the phone. “I’ve just been distracted by all the showtimes, Mister Dent,” the old man said. His free hand dipped into his pocket, withdrawing a handkerchief to dab at his forehead. “You know I appreciate everything that you’re doing for us, sir. If this is about more money..."

“I got money. And I’ve spent a fair amount of it to your benefit. What I want is to see what the return on this little investment of mine is. I’ll need a private show while you’re in Gotham. And I trust this little talent show of yours will prove worthwhile. Capice?”

It was cordial, but something about it sent a cold terror straight through the man’s soul. “I understand, Mister Dent.”

The connection ended with a click. Never had C.C. been so happy with having been hung up on.

Waldo’s hand reached for the phone. As he gestured for the man to hand the device back, the clown’s twisted visage mocked the former magician as he happily offered, “Didn’t I say it was an important call?”

C.C. slapped the phone back into the palm of the clown’s hand. “What happened to you, Waldo?” the man demanded, staring down the man who’d been with him since the beginning. A man he’d have said he knew best, except he was starting to realize that he didn’t know him at all.

This time, the clown face seemed genuine as he gave a laugh. “I’m only laughing on the outside. My smile is just skin deep,” the clown stated, using his free hand to trace the drawn smile upon his face. “If you could see inside, you might join me for a weep,” he said, the poetic recitation ending with a flourish, before the clown turned and walked off.

The sound of his fading laughter made the man only grind his teeth more.

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B L Ü D H A V E N
_{LATER THAT MORNING...}

He’d tried to go back to sleep. Instead, he’d just found himself staring up at the ceiling for hours on end, the demarcation of time marked by the clicking of the clock that hung on the wall in the kitchenette. By the time the sun came up, Dick had been seated inside the bay window that looked out into the downtown and already two cups into a second pot of coffee.

He’d managed to do some laundry, stumbling around the inside of the apartment with his arm and leg in a cast. Nevermind the impact that had to Nightwing, how was Dick Grayson supposed to manage like this?

It was around eight when his phone rang. The number was familiar, though it wasn’t someone that Dick spoke to more than about once every year. Usually his birthday.

The name on the caller ID was C. C. HALY. He almost let it go to voicemail. Hesitated even as he reached to pick up the phone and swipe to answer the call.

He didn’t say hello. Why? He couldn’t have offered a reason. After that dream, after that nightmare, it was still just too real that he’d be talking to Old Man Haly of all people right now.

“Dick? C.C. Haly. We’re coming to Gotham and I just thought that I should give you a call before we came.”

A lump formed in his throat. Swallowing that down, Dick finally managed to find his voice. “Yeah, Mister Haly. I appreciate that.”

“Would you come by to see the circus?”

The old man sounded hopeful just now. It made it hard for Dick to answer. “No, sir. I don’t think so.”

“I understand.”

Silence. Had that been the only reason for the call? Dick had seen the advertisements about Haly’s Circus returning to Gotham. It would have been impossible not to have. All the Gotham Gazette had been talking about was the fact that this was the first visit by Haly’s Circus to Gotham since the death of the Flying Graysons.

It wasn’t that they had any bad blood between them. A lot of good memories in fact. But the bad one hung like a cloud over every facet of his childhood.

“What about a job?”

As though hit by a bolt of electricity, Dick froze. The hair stood up on the back of his neck. He wanted to hang up. Hang up, be done with it, and not give it a second thought.

He didn’t. Instead, he asked, “A job, sir?”

“I’ve got a pair of acrobats. Husband, wife. You know how that goes.”

Dick’s heart stopped. His chest was tight, like there was an elephant sitting on it.

“They’re good, but they’re not John or Mary. They’re as good as natural talent and repetition can make a person, but the right coach would get them to their potential. And, you know there aren’t a whole lot of people that I’d trust to do that sort of thing.”

Dick’s free hand had come up to his chest. He’d broken out into a sweat. “Yeah. I know, Mister Haly.”

“Obviously, we’d reimburse you for your time. With a little extra, because, I know this probably doesn’t sound like something you want to do.”

That fact didn’t so much as require a reply.

They both knew it was true.

“I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t need you, Dick.”

“I’ll come by and see the circus, Mister Haly.”

“Good! We’ll talk then--”

He hung up on the old man. Cradling the phone in his lap, Dick just stared down at the blank screen for a long minute.

The fuck was he doing?